marketing

I’ve been writing about web video since 2009. I’m part of a tiny group of writers who have sustained interest in web television over the years, taking time to interview producers and write about their shows. (Liz Shannon Miller, one such critic, recently compiled a list of sites/publications that do it consistently). Televisual has [...]

The following essay builds on Liz Shannon Miller’s earlier pieces on success in the web series market: “How Do You Define Web Series Success?” and “2013: The year of the web series second season?” This is part of Televisual’s “Indie TV Innovation” series. When I talk to web series creators, there is one constant: They [...]

Online video is comedy, and as the market grows, comedians and indie TV creators are getting more buyers for their shows and videos. Today comedy network My Damn Channel announced a big effort to buy up “hundreds” of comedy shows over the next year. The company’s effort may make it, if not the first, potentially the biggest [...]

An edited version of this essay is published on Slate. Before I watched Machinima’s cinematic new series, Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn, I had to look it up on Wikipedia. Halo ranks among the most successful game franchises in history, and Forward Unto Dawn among the most expensive web series to date, but I’m not a gamer. Unless [...]

Published at Hacktivision. Below you’ll see a map of the digital video ecosystem, as created in a keynote conversation at the New York Television Festival, assembled by Paul Kontonis, head of the IAWTV. I’ve found there’s a lot of demand for maps of what’s going on online. And it’s easy to see why: it’s complicated! The graph above [...]

Originally posted at Hacktivision. As long as we’ve had streaming video, we’ve debated the merits of scripted versus non-scripted video. First lonelygirl15 was popular, then Charlie Bit My Finger. LG15 producer EQAL bailed on producing pre-written programs, but then web series started to find success. It’s been years of mixed signals. Generally, scripted content requires more attention: [...]

Most people believe the Internet and television have different aesthetics. Web content is short, cheap and brash, while television takes its time, because of higher budgets and greater cultural legitimacy. What works on the web cannot work on television, the thinking goes. Asked about The Annoying Orange‘s debut on Cartoon Network last night, professor Jeffrey [...]

How do you go from a controversy-plagued hipster rag to a global, brand-friendly multimedia company? Ask Vice. It took them 10 years. In certain circles you’re not supposed to admit you like Vice. This is largely a remnant of its early years as a central figure in the rise of hipster culture and of its ousted, [...]

I’ve written before about the (increasingly irrelevant) divide between producers of scripted programming and YouTube, a remnant of when YouTube was an “amateur” space. Keith Battista, creator of The Professionals, a sitcom about a team of assassins working under the auspices of an IT company called The Nerd Unit, is a great example of how YouTube [...]

As YouTube scales up, independent creators are increasingly looking for standards and strategies to increase views and revenue. For years the most successful YouTubers have run their channels like networks, adopting tricks and routines to keep and grow audiences. The audience and potential ad revenue has never been greater, so obviously more people are looking [...]